Our friend Rai has a pool in her backyard and so she had a bunch of people over last Saturday. She asked for my advice on what she could serve easily and somehow Boy and I ended up making all the main dishes. O.o I never learn when to shut my mouth and let someone else do the cooking, do I?

It all worked out in the end. I finally found a pizza dough recipe I like, and I now have a GREAT pizza sauce recipe. Oh yeah, and I managed to grill pizza. I tried about a year ago to grill some pizza at out last house. I was going to make some for everyone who helped us move in. It didn’t go well. 😦 The dough just fell through the grate of the grill. I was so very upset.

This time, I baked each crust for a few minutes before taking them out to the grill to finish the pizza. It was amazing, and it made great leftovers too.

Rob Proctor is a garden expert for a local news station. My aunt, gardener extraordinaire, told me about it and got tickets. Ryula, Rai, and I decided to go and oh my was it amazing! For a semi-arid climate, it was so very lush and dense. There were several seating areas that I would kill to have for sitting outside and reading, or having some tea, or just to be in. ❤ I’ll let Ryula take over now.

Hey! So my friend Ryula wanted to show off her garden, so she’s going to start writing for this blog. She’s been doing some really cool stuff, trying to reorganize her back yard and get a huge vegetable garden started. I’ve been helping out from time to time, but since I have a black thumb, I’m really only good for manual labor.

So Soshi says that, but frankly her herbs are doing fine because she finally put them where they can get sun– it’s not her thumb that’s black. As for the manual labor, that just happens to be what happens before you can plant anything in an un-prepped area. ^^ Hi! I’m Ryula, and I’ve been stealing Soshi for a few days in the past week or so to help me do all sorts of yard work. Hopefully everything will go well and get done and look lovely when she posts pictures!

Here’s the soon-to-be vegetable garden. It’s a bit of a mess, but how else do you get things done? ^^ This whole space is going to be the vegetable garden. It’ll have squash, cucumber, radishes, chard, romaine, spinach, and so on. And since I’m helping, I get some! I’m looking forward to it. Continue reading →

I’m not going on a diet. My goal is not to be slim or skinny. I want to be healthy, and it’s REALLY hard. Being healthy isn’t about a month long fad diet, it’s about a slow steady loss of weight and change in many areas of my life. My big problems are: Continue reading →

Have I mentioned yet on here that I love tea? If not, well, I do. I love it a lot. I got some new tea in a few days ago and it prompted me to share. I keep quite a few varieties on hand, but they all come from only three shops. The best known has to be Tevana.

I have a problem with my pantry, namely that it has steadily been getting messier! I’ve only dealt with one shelf so far, but it has already helped my sanity.

Note the various bags that are just floating around, and there’s plenty more you can’t see. They made everything very unstable. I had couscous in a bag from the bulk bins from Sprouts, bags of nuts, chocolate chips, and caramels. And so on. Continue reading →

Easter for the past few years has had more meaning for me than it used to. My grandma died 3 years ago on April 1. Last year I started cooking my grandma’s Easter dinner for my mom, a little taste of the past for both of us. Every year I saw my grandma for Easter and for Thanksgiving, and that’s it. I have very vivid memories of those holiday dinners, shared with my aunts, uncles, and cousins, and I really regret that I didn’t have the same interest in cooking back then that I do now. I could have learned so much more if I’d stuck around the kitchen and watched my grandma. Continue reading →